A new indoor pickleball facility is coming to Philly
With the success of Bounce Pickleball’s Malvern location, the company’s next stop is the city. Bounce recently signed a 10-year lease for space in the Poplar neighborhood.
There will soon be a new place to play pickleball in Philly.
Bounce Pickleball, which already has a Malvern location, recently signed a 10-year lease for part of a former DiBruno Bros. warehouse in the city’s Poplar neighborhood, said Braden Keith, director of operations and marketing.
The company is renting 30,000 square feet, which should accommodate a dozen full-size courts and a couple warm-up courts, Keith said, and players who come by car will be able to park in 42 spots outside the building. The location at 913 Wallace St. is set to open by the end of the year, after an approximately $500,000 renovation of the warehouse space.
“It felt like something the city needed,” Keith said. “We believe in the game of pickleball and what it can do in communities. There are so many pickleball players in the city.”
The new facility is just the latest local byproduct of pickleball’s growing popularity. The hybrid of tennis, badminton, and Ping-Pong is the fastest-growing sport in the country, based on the number of adults who have played a game in the past year, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.
Since at least 2018, pickleball has had Philly-area fans, including Jersey Shore diehards. Demand for places to play surged during the pandemic, when people were looking for socially distant activities.
Today, indoor and outdoor courts can be found throughout the region, and pickleball-specific facilities are popping up from Moorestown to Lansdale.
In the city, outdoor pop-up courts have come to Dilworth Park for a few weeks each fall. And this spring, several multisport facilities — including Court 16, Portres Sport Club, Ballers, and Viva Padel & Pickleball — are set to open in the Fishtown, Northern Liberties, and Ludlow neighborhoods, and will offer pickleball.
Bounce already has a 14-court pickleball facility in Malvern, as well as a new location in Baltimore and one coming soon to Wilmington. Since opening in 2023, the Malvern location has gained a loyal following on the Main Line, with about 2,200 paid members, Keith said, and 3,000 “educational guests” who come in for lessons.
At the other Bounce facilities, memberships range from $50 a year for daytime play to $225 a year for access to all Bounce locations. A $3,450 “founder’s membership” is also available for unlimited open-play events. Keith said he anticipates there will be a similar pricing structure for members of the Philadelphia location.
Courts typically fill up fast, Keith said, so the company tries not to oversell memberships. Instead, he added, they like to build a community, which they hope to do in Philly as soon as the new space opens.
“We expect demand in the city to go crazy,” said Keith, himself a Philly resident. “People are tired of driving across the bridge to New Jersey” to play pickleball.